You are receiving this email for professional knowledge/updates of your interest. If you do not wish to receive this type of email from us in the future, please click here to unsubscribe

Global Business |Update|
(A weekly update on Global Business )
Skyline Business School
Hauz Khas Enclave, New Delhi 110 016
Tel: 2686 4848, 2686 6968

---

Issue 124

Global Business Update
(5th August’09----11th August’09)

Contents

Global Corporate

1 Toshiba joins Blu-ray disc camp
2 Hyundai chief in N Korea mission
3 Microsoft to sell advertising arm
4 RBS downbeat despite £15m profit
5 AIG posts first profit since 2007
6 No probe into MG Rover collapse
7 eBay to start selling new GM cars

Global Outsourcing

8 Make the best of time between two jobs
9 Indian Outsourcer HCL Acquires Data Center in the US
10 Bharatbook.com: e learning Outsourcing 2009 Advantage India
11 Wipro may soon bag big-ticket outsourcing deals
12 Logica First-Half Profit Surges on Outsourcing Services Sales
13 EXL Reports 2009 Second Quarter Results

Global Economy

14 France and Germany exit recession
15 Loans to homebuyers '23% higher'
16 US sees strong productivity rise
17 Sugar price reaches 28-year high
18 RBI's accommodative policy to stay until recovery
19 IIP spikes to 7.8 pct, at 16 month high
20 India's shares at risk from monsoon woes

Global Markets

21 Wall St hurt by data, but financials curb losses
22 Bulls lift Asia stocks near 11-month highs
23 India invests in US debts worth $38.8 bn
24 Economic impact of swine flu
25 Asian stocks gain on profit hopes despite Japan quake

Global Corporate

1 Toshiba joins Blu-ray disc camp
Toshiba is to start making products that can play Blu-ray discs. The decision marks a big change for the electronics firm which was the prime mover of the rival HD-DVD format. Blu-ray and HD-DVD went head-to-head to see who could dominate the burgeoning market for movies produced in the high definition format. The format war was effectively won in early 2008 when the Blu-ray camp won the backing of all four of the biggest movie studios. Blu-ray was largely developed by Sony. Its efforts to dominate the HD market were also helped by sales of the PlayStation 3 which has a Blu-ray player built-in. Toshiba said it would begin production of stand alone Blu-ray players as well as drives for PCs and laptops. Its first products are likely to be ready for the end of 2009.
10th August 2009, www.bbc.co.uk

2 Hyundai chief in N Korea mission
The head of one of South Korea's largest conglomerates, Hyundai Asan, has gone to North Korea to try to secure the release of a company worker. The man, known only by his family name, Yoo, was detained in March at the joint North-South factory zone in the Northern border town of Kaesong. The Hyundai boss, Hyun Jeong-eun, is one of the few South Koreans to have met with Northern leader Kim Jong-il. Hyundai has invested in cross-border trade and tourism projects. Ms Hyun's meeting with Mr Kim took place in happier times, however. With North-South Korean relations strained to breaking point in recent months, much of Hyundai Asan's work inside the North has been suspended and Mr Yoo was arrested.
10th August 2009, www.bbc.co.uk

3 Microsoft to sell advertising arm
Technology giant Microsoft is to sell its digital advertising arm Razorfish to French advertising company Publicis. Under the deal, estimated to be worth $530m (£318m), Microsoft has to make minimum future spending with Razorfish. Microsoft will receive 3% of Publicis, which is the fourth largest advertising firm in the world. Microsoft took over Razorfish when it bought aQuantive, the parent firm of three digital marketing firms, as part of a wider $6bn acquisition in 2007.
11th August 2009, www.bbc.co.uk

4 RBS downbeat despite £15m profit
Royal Bank of Scotland Group, which is 70%-owned by taxpayers, has reported a pre-tax profit of £15m for the first six months of the year. The statement from RBS was downbeat, highlighting the £1bn loss after paying tax and dividends to the government and describing the results as "poor". The investment banking division fared well, making about a £5bn profit, while high street banking had a harder time. RBS also said it had written off £7.5bn of assets such as bad debts.
7th August 2009, www.bbc.co.uk

5 AIG posts first profit since 2007
Insurer AIG has seen its first quarterly profit since 2007, as its business improved during the period. It made a $1.82bn (£1.09bn) profit in the three months to June, after a loss of $5.4bn in the same period of 2008. AIG was bailed out by the US government in 2008 and is now 80% state-owned. In total, the firm has received $182.5bn of government funding. Its earnings were boosted by investment gains but the company's insurance operations remained weak. Shares in the insurer jumped sharply on the news to close almost 22% higher. AIG said it was closer to unwinding AIG Financial Products, the arm responsible for nearly 50% of its $99bn losses in 2008.
9th August 2009, www.bbc.co.uk

6 No probe into MG Rover collapse
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has said it does not intend to launch a criminal investigation into the collapse of carmaker MG Rover. Its announcement comes a month after Business Secretary Lord Mandelson asked the SFO to study the results of a four-year independent report into the saga. Midlands-based MG Rover collapsed in 2005 with the loss of 6,500 jobs. The four executives in control of MG Rover, the so-called Phoenix Four, have always denied any wrongdoing. The SFO said that it could not comment about the reasons for its decision because the inspectors' report had not been made public. It will be released on 11 September.
11th August 2009, www.bbc.co.uk

7 eBay to start selling new GM cars
General Motors (GM) and eBay are launching a trial scheme in the US that will allow customers to buy new GM cars via the auction website. More than 225 of GM's 250 Californian dealers have signed up to the scheme, which will allow consumers to either pay a fixed price or try to haggle. The trial will run from 11 August to 8 September and is part of GM's continuing efforts to boost sales. The carmaker emerged from bankruptcy protection in early July. All four of GM's brands - Buick, Chevrolet, GMC and Pontiac - will be available through the eBay scheme. Customers buying a car via the website would then have to pick it up from one of the participating GM dealerships.
11th August 2009, www.bbc.co.uk

Global Outsourcing

8 Make the best of time between two jobs
Tech firms TCS and Wipro, apart from several others, are in pursuit of up to Rs 2,500-crore outsourcing contract at Indian Railways, as the world’s biggest civilian employer plans to procure a human resource management system (HRMS) and other modules for integrating and automating functions of payroll, accounting and pension. With around 1.6 million employees, Indian Railways aims to have a centralised system for managing its staff better. The organisation plans to spend around $1.5 billion over the next two to three years on technology. We will be coming out with a request for proposal very soon. The idea is to have built-operate-transfer (BOT) model with the vendors, said a senior railways official. He requested anonymity because he is not authorised to talk about the project.
5th August 2009, www.economictimes.com

9 Indian Outsourcer HCL Acquires Data Center in the US
Indian outsourcer HCL Technologies has acquired its first data center in the U.S. from one of its customers, the company said on Monday. HCL also took over the data center's staff and other operations, said R. Srikrishna, senior vice president for sales for the North America business of HCL's Infrastructure Services Division. HCL actually acquired the data center in October but delayed announcing it until this month, pending the upgrade of the facility. The data center, located in New Jersey, fits into HCL's strategy to offer some services from locations close to its customers, Srikrishna said. The data center will in part be used to serve the unnamed customer HCL purchased it from, as well as offer services to other HCL clients. HCL has already invested US$15 million to upgrade the 35,000-square-foot center to support eco-friendly technologies, virtualization, cloud computing, business continuity and mainframe management services.
6th August 2009, www.pcworld.com

10 Bharatbook.com: e learning Outsourcing 2009 Advantage India
E-learning Outsourcing 2009 Advantage India report provide the information about Indian e-learning outsourcing industry, which consists of both, third-party providers and offshore delivery centers of international e-learning providers and consulting firms. Apart from pure-play e-learning firms, companies from fields such as IT, BPO, publishing and domestic retail education have made a foray into the market, mostly in the last decade. Given the fragmented nature of the Indian industry, we estimates that there are no more than 35 e-learning providers who have more than 100 employees. There are well over a hundred other smaller providers in this space.
8th August 2009, www.tutorial-reports.com

11 Wipro may soon bag big-ticket outsourcing deals
Wipro, the country’s third-largest software services exporter, expects to close a clutch of big-ticket outsourcing deals — each valued upwards of $100 million — in the second quarter of 2009-10. The company claims it has a good funnel of potential clients who prefer end-to-end solutions in areas like IT services, consulting, remote management and BPO. Confirming this, Wipro executive director & CFO Suresh C Senapaty said: “We expect to win some good clients this year despite the slowdown. It is true that bids are getting complex and taking longer time to conclude. However, we are optimistic of closing few large deals, especially in the $100-million plus range,” Mr Senapaty told ET. Wipro had added 26 new clients in the first quarter (April-June 2009). “The total value of the new deals bagged in Q1 is around $700 million, with quite a few in the $30-million plus range. Clients are now looking for long-term deals and prefer end-to-end processing,” Mr Senapaty said. The company also indicated that hiring could become robust in the months to come.
6th August 2009, www.economictimes.com

12 Logica First-Half Profit Surges on Outsourcing Services Sales
Logica Plc, the Anglo-Dutch computer- services provider, said first-half profit rose fourfold as the company cut costs and outsourcing-services revenue increased. Net income for the 6 months ended June 30 rose to 21.2 million pounds ($35.6 million), from 5.2 million pounds a year earlier, the London-based company said in a statement distributed by PR Newswire today. Sales climbed 6 percent to 1.88 billion pounds. The impact of our investments in customer facing teams is particularly clear in outsourcing services where orders are up 18 percent, and in the UK where revenues are up 7 percent, Chief Executive Officer Andy Green said in the statement. Our strong cost program has ensured solid margin delivery despite volume and price pressure.
11th August 2009, www.tutorial-reports.com

13 EXL Reports 2009 Second Quarter Results
ExlService Holdings, Inc, a leading provider of outsourcing and transformation services, today announced its financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2009. Rohit Kapoor, President and CEO, commented: "After announcing our win in July with a strategic client in the transportation and logistics vertical, which will enable us to deliver services from the Czech Republic, we are now excited to announce that we will be setting up a new center in Romania. We continue to invest in our long-term growth despite the difficult economic environment and believe our expansion into Europe will benefit our Global 1000 clients by providing enhanced capabilities in finance and accounting as well as multi-lingual business process outsourcing solutions.
8th August 2009, www.tutorial-reports.com

Global Economy

14 France and Germany exit recession
The French and German economies both grew by 0.3% between April and June, bringing to an end year-long recessions in Europe's largest economies. Stronger exports and consumer spending, as well as government stimulus packages, contributed to the growth. The data came as a surprise, with few analysts expecting Germany and France to start to recover so soon. But economic activity in the eurozone fell by 0.1%, showing the region as a whole is still in recession. It was the fifth consecutive quarter of economic contraction in the eurozone, but was a marked improvement on the 2.5% drop recorded in the first three months of the year.
12th August 2009, www.bbc.co.uk

15 Loans to homebuyers '23% higher'
The number of mortgages for homebuyers granted in June rose by 23% compared with May, according to UK lenders. Some 45,000 home loans were granted for house purchases - just 6% lower than the same month the previous year, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said. The group said the mortgage market had stabilised, although this was far from a return to the housing boom. First-time buyers were still being squeezed, as they required an average deposit of 25% of a home's value. The CML figures showed that the number of loans granted in June to people buying a house was at its highest level since July last year, when the housing market was already entering the doldrums, and amounted to £5.9bn.
10th August 2009, www.bbc.co.uk

16 US sees strong productivity rise
US productivity rose at its fastest annual pace for nearly six years in the second quarter of 2009, figures from the Department of Labor show. Productivity, measuring workers' hourly output, rose at an annual rate of 6.4% in the second quarter. However, the figure for the first quarter of 2009 was revised downwards, to an increase of 0.3% from an initial estimate of 1.6% growth. Labour costs fell 5.8% on an annual basis during the same period. The annual pace of productivity gains in the second quarter of this year was the highest since the third quarter of 2003. The fall in labour costs was the most since 2000. It came after the previous quarter's labour costs fell 2.7%.
8th August 2009, www.bbc.co.uk

17 Sugar price reaches 28-year high
The price of raw sugar has increased to its highest level since 1981, as supply concerns grow. Raw sugar futures added 3% on Monday, to finish the day at 22 cents a pound. The main problem is a deficit in sugar supplies, said Nick Penney, a trader with Sucden Financial, a firm that focuses on sugar trading. Growing demand in Brazil for sugar to be turned into ethanol, coupled with a sharp fall in Indian production, have both prompted worries, he explained. Sugar production in India for 2008-09 fell 45% year-on-year, according to a report by Sucden.
8th August 2009, www.bbc.co.uk

18 RBI's accommodative policy to stay until recovery
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will maintain an accommodative monetary stance until the economy shows signs of recovery, a junior finance minister told parliament on Friday, citing last month's policy review report. Namo Narain Meena said in a written reply the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would maintain a monetary and interest rate regime consistent with price stability and financial stability supportive of returning the economy to the high growth path. Last month, the RBI left its short-term rates and banks' cash reserve requirement unchanged, and stressed that its priority is to nurture growth, although it lifted its forecast for wholesale prices in a sign of tightening measures to come.
7th August 2009, www.financialexpress.com

19 IIP spikes to 7.8 pct, at 16 month high
Led by a smart recovery in manufacturing sector, industrial production growth accelerated to 7.8 per cent in June compared to 2.7 per cent a month ago. Manufacturing sector, which accounts for two-thirds of the industrial production, recorded a growth of 7.3 per cent in June indicating return of consumer demand in the market. Consumer durables and capital goods grew by 15.5 per cent and 11.8 per cent, respectively - the strongest expansion in several months. The trend in the first quarter, however, remained subdued at 3.7 per cent mainly due to lower production in the first two months of the period.
11th August 2009, www.financialexpress.com

20 India's shares at risk from monsoon woes
Forecasts of weak rains in the next five days and inadequate water in reservoirs have raised the risk to the country's cane and soybean crops, and fears of a wider economic fall out could spook the stock market. India's weather office said on Friday rainfall would be meagre in the main soybean region in central India, which has been unusually dry for more than 15 days and needs rains in the next few days to prevent crop damage. Government data also showed the seasonal rise in water level in reservoirs was slower than normal, raising the prospect of more power cuts with a drop in hydropower output.
9th August 2009, www.financialexpress.com